Brunel Lecture Series on Complex Systems
Engineering Systems Division

Lecture: The Columbia Tragedy: System-Level Issues for Engineering

by Sheila Widnall
Member, Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Member, National Women's Hall of Fame
Institute Professor, Professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics, and Engineering Systems, Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Click here to view lecture poster (.pdf).
Click here to view MIT World video of this lecture.

About the Lecture:

The Columbia accident resulted from an organizational systems failure that allowed the physical event to occur. Insulating foam from the external tank impacted the shuttle, creating a breech in the wing’s leading edge that allowed gases at temperatures of some 5000 degrees F to enter the wing and devastate its internal structure. The response of engineers and program mangers while Columbia was in orbit raises important issues for the education of engineers. It also raises questions about engineers’ responsibility to treat system-level issues with the same disciplinary expertise with which they treat components.

On October 28, 2003, the CAIB released Volumes II - VI of its report. Please click here to access this and other CAIB information.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Widnall received her Sc.D. from MIT.

She has served as Associate Provost, MIT, and as Secretary of the Air Force. As Secretary of the Air Force, Dr. Widnall was responsible for all affairs of the Department of the Air Force including recruiting, organizing, training, administration, logistical support, maintenance, and welfare of personnel. During this time, the Air Force issued its long range vision statement: Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force, which defined the path from the air and space force of today to the space and air force of the next century. Dr. Widnall was also responsible for research and development and other activities prescribed by the President or the Secretary of Defense. She co-chaired the Department of Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Discrimination. She later stepped down to resume teaching.

Since returning to MIT, she has been active in the Lean Aerospace Initiative, with special emphasis on the space and policy focus teams. Her research activities in fluid dynamics have included the following: boundary layer stability, unsteady hydrodynamic loads on fully wetted and supercavitating hydrofoils of finite span, unsteady lifting-surface theory, unsteady air forces on oscillating cylinders in subsonic and supersonic flow, unsteady leading-edge vortex separation from slender delta wings, tip-vortex aerodynamics, helicopter noise, aerodynamics of high-speed ground transportation vehicles, vortex stability, aircraft-wake studies, turbulence, and transition. Her teaching activities have included undergraduate dynamics and aerodynamics, graduate level aerodynamics of wings and bodies, aeroelasticity, acoustics and aerodynamic noise, and aerospace vehicle vibration. She was a member of the Columbia accident investigation board and she was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in 2003.

About the Series:

THE BRUNEL LECTURE SERIES ON COMPLEX SYSTEMS was made possible by funds assembled and underwritten by Frank P. Davidson, convener of the Channel Tunnel Study Group (1957). It was this group's design, accomplished by agreement with Bechtel Corporation, Brown & Root, Inc. and Morrison-Knudsen Company, Inc. in 1959, that formed the basis of the subsea railway link now in service between England and France.

Mr. Davidson is a retired Senior Research Associate at MIT. From 1970-1996, he was Chairman of the System Dynamics Steering Committee, Sloan School of Management, and Coordinator of the Macro-Engineering Research Group at MIT's School of Engineering. He co-edited, with C. Lawrence Meador, Macro-Engineering: Global Infrastructure Solutions, subtitled Massachusetts Institute of Technology Brunel Lectures 1983-1992. With Ernst G. Frankel and C. Lawrence Maedor, he co-edited Macro-Engineering, subtitled MIT Brunel Lectures on Global Infrastructure. These volumes, published by Ellis Horwood and Horwood Publishing Limited in 1992 and 1997, respectively, appeared in Chichester, England, as did Macro-Problems and World Projects, subtitled Essays in Honor of Frank Davidson, which appeared in 1998, on the occasion of Mr. Davidsons retirement and 80th birthday. The latter volume was edited by MIT Professor Emeritus Ernst G. Frankel and by Uwe Kitzinger, CBE, former president of Templeton College, Oxford, and now a Visiting Scholar at Harvard.

Brunel Lectures 2001 – Present:

Educating Engineers for 2020 and Beyond (2006)
by Dr. Charles M. Vest
President Emeritus and Professor of Mechanical Engineering

The 21st Century is about Engineering, Systems, and Society (2005)
by Dr. A. Richard Newton
Dean of the College of Engineering at University of California at Berkeley; Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering; Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Engineering Engineering Systems (2004)
by Thomas L. Magnanti
Institute Professor
Dean, MIT School of Engineering

The Columbia Tragedy: System-Level Issues for Engineering (2003)
by Sheila Widnall
Member, Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Member, National Women's Hall of Fame
Institute Professor, Professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics, and Engineering Systems, Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Living with Catastrophic Terrorism: Can Science and Technology Make the U.S. Safer? (2002)
by Lewis M. Branscomb
Co-chair, Committee on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism, National Research Council and Professor Emeritus, Public Policy and Corporate Management, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Simple Systems and Other Myths (2001)
by Norman R. Augustine
Former President, CEO, and Chairman and Current Chairman, Executive Committee, Lockheed Martin Corporation